Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Kabuki actor Kantaro Nakamura appears at New York premiere of "Zen"

by Chris MaGee

Kabuki actor Kantaro Nakamura made a personal appearance at the New York premiere of Banmei Takahashi's historical drama "Zen" that took place at the headquarters of the Director's Guild of America yesterday. While Nakamura comes from a long line of kabuki actors "Zen" is only his second feature film role, and it's a pretty big role. Nakamura portrays Dōgen, the 13th-century Buddhist monk who founded the Sōtō School of Zen, alongside such well known names as Tatsuya Fujiwara, Sho Aikawa, Jun Murakami and Yuki Uchida.

Nakamura was very impressed by the crowd who came out to see the film as he doubted if its philosophical storyline would translate to American audiences. "Zen is a very subtle movie," Nakamura explained, "In the days where we are going for easy entertainment, I was wondering whether people would come and see the film."

Distributed in Japan by Kadokawa Pictures there are now plans to screen "Zen" in 20 cities across the U.S. Thanks to Brietbart.com for this bit of news.